15 years of large scale biotech

[Skeptical]

iceaura

The proof of the baking is in the eating. 15 years of safe use. That reflects the original quality of testing.

You can use your imagination all you like, and conjure up all the nightmares you like, but the reality is that it works, without the disasters you and your friends with their strange internet sites imagine.

 

[iceaura]

The proof of the baking is in the eating. 15 years of safe use. That reflects the original quality of testing.

We don't have even one year of demonstrated safe use. And no adequate testing at all - not even the data base necessary for such testing from the surrounding ecosystems, let alone adequate consideration of the economics and politics.

The Irish had more than a hundred years of "safe use" of the potato, at least thirty of dependency, until 1845. All that means is that they didn't see it coming. Violation of basic agricultural and economic principles is not safe, and fifteen years is an eyeblink in the gathering of consequences.

 

[Skeptical]

iceaura

Those are mere words. This is a science forum where data is king.

 

[iceaura]

Those are mere words. This is a science forum where data is king.

There is no data in existence capable of "demonstrating" fifteen years of "safe use" of this brand new kind of innovation in agricultural practice.

The Irish were not safe, for any fifteen year stretch of the fifty or more years of their dependence on the single kind of potato that had come to dominate their food supply - regardless of any "data" floating around. The kinds of data necessary would be phenomenally large scale and varied (from South America, involving dozens of varieties of root crop and local agricultural practices, in the case of the Irish potato), and intensively gathered for a generation or more.

Meanwhile, we are just beginning to approach the era of dependence on Monsanto's innovations and good will. We haven't had fifteen years of such dependence, to evaluate for "safety". We haven't thoroughly evaluated any of the years of research and trial we have had.

So: No fifteen years. No data.

 

[Skeptical]

iceaura

Fifteen years of monitored experience is not "no data". The total amount of data is enormous. Denying such data is simply another ostritch tactic.

 

[chimpkin]

Found this and thought I'd tack it to the existing thread...this seems like a probable good use of biotechnology here:

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre71n6nx-us-malaria-fungus/

Anybody see potential problems?

 

[Skeptical]

iceaura will.

 

[iceaura]

Fifteen years of monitored experience is not "no data".

Yes, it is.

We have fifteen years of increasing and increasingly varied, complicated use. Little of it has been monitored with any diligence or thoroughness (far too expensive),

and none of it has been monitored with a thorough understanding of the context (environmental, economic, political) of its use. That is because no such understanding exists, for any of the relevant contexts.

We haven't monitored any of it for most of the predicted kinds of hazards, few of the applications have even the meager fifteen years of experience; a few safe operations would not guarantee the others; and fifteen years is not enough time for assurance of safety even just in any one case, let alone the entire and accelerating field.

This is all pretty obvious, one would hope.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre...alaria-fungus/

Anybody see potential problems?

Intriguing. If it works in the field, they're onto something - even if it only partly works. That kind of approach should be the norm, IMHO.

One area of risk is in the delivery of the fungus - what else can it infect, if broadcast like that?

 

[Skeptical]

Actually, the 15 years of experience is way ahead of any other safety program related to food or agriculture. The only thing that comes close is the drug industry, in terms of safety testing.

Up until the first GM crops, new food and agriculture crops and foods were largely introduced without much testing at all. It is kind of interesting that the first demand for testing came from the GM industry itself. Before Greenpeace and the anti-GM 'industry' got cranking, scientists working in this field decided to openly discuss potential problems. It was only after that, that the iceaura's of the world started agitating.

Right from that moment, safety testing was instigated at a level substantially better than anything earlier. As I pointed out in another thread, in the 1950's and 1960's, mutation was a major tool in plant breeding, using radiation or mutagenic chemicals. The results were introduced into agriculture and the human food chain with next to no testing at all. And that was a far riskier technique than GM, since the agriculture scientists doing it had no way of knowing what kind of gene changes were happening. It was definitely a case of spray and pray.

Today, we have detailed testing regimens, and monitoring over long periods. Long term animal feeding studies, for example, are a part of what any new GM plant is tested on before any approval for commercial use is given.

In short, the past 15 years has been a time of close monitoring, and no adverse effects have been found, in spite of the intense efforts of the anti-GM lobby groups, who in some cases were quite prepared to invent the harm, if they could find none. eg. Monarch butterflies.

 

[iceaura]

Up until the first GM crops, new food and agriculture crops and foods were largely introduced without much testing at all.

Once again, the attempt to rhetorically conflate ordinary breeding and borrowing of domesticated crops with GM modifications.

The "Age Old Question", with these people.

The irrelevant assertion is also false, btw: new crops and new foods have generally been greeted with great suspicion, and proved themselves only over many decades of long and carefully approached familiarity - field testing of great thoroughness. Farmers left to their own devices and in control of their own practices are notoriously set in their ways.

In short, the past 15 years has been a time of close monitoring

And yet we read that they are just now doing the research necessary to find a way to do the research necessary to partly test simple and basic short term toxicity in mammalian ingestion - that Austrian mouse study was in 2008.

We recall that when the bees started dying, it took a few years (until very recently) to crank up studies on the possible effects of a couple of the more common GM crops on bees - and these studies are as yet incomplete and inconclusive.

So they hadn't been done, see? They still haven't been done. It's not an easy thing to study - very expensive, very complex, takes years. One single simple issue, just a couple of the more common crops.

Unbelievable, that this kind of monitoring is described as "close". And that's just direct, immediate, simple effects on a couple of very important agricultural aspects that happened to come up. The overall ecological, economic, and sociopolitical stuff has been mostly just ignored.

 

[Skeptical]

iceaura

The bee thing is a smoke screen. Research shows a number of possible causes for bee population drops, and none to do with GM. One possible cause is nicotinoid pesticides (mostly used by 'organic' farmers), but the biggest cause seems to be parasites and diseases spread around the world by inadequate biosecurity.

And I repeat. At no time in human history have innovations in crops and foods been so intensively tested. The anti-GM mob take advantage of the fact that so many thousand published studies exist, by cherry picking the few that show concerns. The fact that 1 in 20 show concerns is absolutely expected for something that has no problem. It is an expected statistical outcome. It is not a cause for worry. it is not a cause for paranoia.

Though the anti-GM organisations will ride these answers from the expected incorrect end of the normal distribution curve of study results, for all they are worth.

A pity that Greenpeace and its allies have so few real scientists!

 

[iceaura]

And I repeat. At no time in human history have innovations in crops and foods been so intensively tested.

1) At no time in human history have humans manipulated genomes as they do now. It's like splitting atoms compared with lighting fires - testing is obligatory, and so far completely inadequate and incommensurable with the risks imposed on us all.

For private corporate profit.

2) The claim is in error: almost all agricultural innovations in anything - crops, food handling, techniques, practices, etc - have been very thoroughly tested, in real time and by means of carefully attended field trials. The price for failing to do that has been starvation. Real farmers in real communities have always known better than to bet their entire food supply on something they never heard of until ten or fifteen years ago.

The bee thing is a smoke screen.

The "bee thing" is a solid counterexample to your claims of careful testing and adequate comprehension: it caught the GM researchers completely by surprise. They had no idea whether their modifications could be contributing to the bee die-offs or not, and still haven't ruled them out altogether.

The presence and importance of bees is a major, obvious, well known, and intensively investigated factor in standard agriculture, and the GM manipulations hadn't been adequately tested with respect to it. Still haven't been - it's a complex and long term investigation, and they are just getting started.

 

[Skeptical]

iceaura

Novel foods were not tested. This was so bad that, when potatoes were introduced into Europe, no-one knew that potato leaves were toxic. People became ill when those leaves were put into salads. When tomatoes were introduced, the opposite happened. People thought the tomatoes were toxic and would not eat them. Of course, tomato leaves are toxic, and my guess is that this fact was discovered the hard way.

For the first time in history, novel foods get tested before introduction. GM foods and crops more than any food or crop at any time in history.

On bees. There is no credible evidence for any harm to bees from GM crops. There is a mass of evidence, on the other hand, for harm to bees from poor biosecurity. Here in New Zealand, for example, we received the varroa bee mite parasite, which is causing genuine devastation to bee populations. Trying to raise GM as a problem is not helping.

 

[iceaura]

For the first time in history, novel foods get tested before introduction. GM foods and crops more than any food or crop at any time in history.

This is the rhetoric of corporate propaganda - the conflation of GM manipulations with ordinary new crops and breeding of the past.

On bees. There is no credible evidence for any harm to bees from GM crops

Of course not. There was no investigation of the possibility until recently. How would there be any evidence gathered from no investigation?

The only question is whether the poster knows better, and is shilling for somebody, or is sincere and badly confused on the fundamentals.

Novel foods were not tested. This was so bad that, when potatoes were introduced into Europe, no-one knew that potato leaves were toxic. People became ill when those leaves were put into salads.

The slow acceptance of potatoes and tomatoes in Europe was indeed the consequence of human testing and gathering of experience - only after many years of that were potatoes accepted as a staple crop.

You may not like the methodology, but the information gathered thereby was detailed and accurate and far more complete from the actual farmer's pov, than this GM "testing": proprietary, narrowly focused, quickly gathered and thinly based data set collection focused on profit potential for the parent company.

 

[Skeptical]

The slow acceptance of potatoes and tomatoes in Europe was indeed the consequence of human testing and gathering of experience - only after many years of that were potatoes accepted as a staple crop.

You may not like the methodology, but the information gathered thereby was detailed and accurate and far more complete from the actual farmer's pov, than this GM "testing": .

Are you advocating testing by using the population as large scale guinea pigs? It certainly sounds like it. I can just imagine how you and your quasi-political anti-GM friends would react to a suggestion that GM foods be 'tested' in this way!

The introduction of potatoes and tomatoes was done by just putting them into the human food chain. Sure, lots of people refused to eat them at first. Normal human suspicion of something new. However, there was no testing. One result was poisonings from eating the toxic leaves of potatoes and tomatoes. The leaves contain large amounts of plant toxins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Toxicity

Potatoes can also poison people if they eat parts of the tuber exposed too much to the light, when they go green, and develop solanine build up. This too, was discovered the hard way.

Today we have a far superior system, in which no-one is used as a guinea pig. Instead, novel foods are tested on bacteria first, and then laboratory animals, long before any human gets to taste them. This is a far superior system, which means no-one gets to be poisoned.

 

[iceaura]

Are you advocating testing by using the population as large scale guinea pigs? It certainly sounds like it.

Please. You are not that stupid - that kind of rhetorical trick is troll tactics.

Today we have a far superior system, in which no-one is used as a guinea pig. Instead, novel foods are tested on bacteria first, and then laboratory animals, long before any human gets to taste them. This is a far superior system, which means no-one gets to be poisoned.

That superior system depends on the comprehensive and thorough setup of the testing regimen, however.

And even when diligently and expensively accomplished, it has dealt with only one narrow aspect of the hazards of the novel food involved. In the case of borrowed and adopted crops, we have the long experience of the original domestication to fill in the gaps. In the case of GM manipulations, we are at sea in a new ocean - it will take many years, with each manipulation separately at first, to gain the kind of familiarity an confidence we can get so much more easily with ordinary breeding and borrowing.

And of course there is the more common situation, when diligence and expense are shorted, in which whole populations of people are used as guinea pigs - such as the targeted poor farmers of Africa, India, etc.